"Ah," resumed Evans, "would to God that that vessel had come up sooner! We should have been saved--those left of us--from a living death that lasted for many years. Yes, now you come to mention it, I remember the rain; but we never dreamed that it would put out the fire, for we left her burning furiously. Well, the other ship was too late, and it makes no difference now. But, to get on with my yarn. We reached the port of Tunis about ten days later, and there was much joy there when it was found what a valuable cargo the corsair had brought back; and the joy was all the greater because of the twelve white prisoners, for white slaves are reckoned very valuable in those parts, and there hadn't been any taken for a very long while. We were all put up to auction, and the man who bid highest got the man he fancied. A big Moor from the back-country took a liking for me, for I was a fine strapping youngster then, although you mightn't think it to look at me now. Well, he bought me, but me only; so I said good-bye to my comrades, never expecting to see them again, and we set off with my master's caravan for the interior. "His home must have been some hundreds of miles in the interior, for it took us over two months of travelling every day to get there. We struck from the town of Tunis south-eastwards, as I could tell by the sun. After travelling for a long time we came to a big river, with fields of rice on each side of it, and beyond them the burning desert, with hills and mountains behind that again. When we came to the river we left the camels, and proceeded in boats until we came to a mighty waterfall, where we quitted the river for a time, and went a little way overland; then we took to the river again. This we did four times, and at last, after more than two months, travelling all the time, we came to a big town, built all of white stone, very fine to see. All around were green places like parks, with wells of good water in them; and there were palm-trees all about, and palaces of white marble; it was a lovely place for a free man to live in, but for a slave it was dreadful. "Well, my masters, I was kept here for ten long years, during which I learnt the language, and found that the city in which I dwelt was named Khartoum. Then I began to fall ill; I looked old with suffering, and could not do the tasks allotted to me. I was whipped, and burnt with red-hot irons; but even such cruelties as these did not make me do any more work--for indeed I was more dead than alive,--so at last my master said he would send me down the river to the sea-coast, and sell me there as a galley-slave, as I was of no more use to him, while I should be made to work when I was in the galleys. So, with six others in like condition, I was sent off one morning, in charge of a guard, down the river, passing on our way six waterfalls or cataracts, as also many ruined temples and palaces of great age and beauty, with no men in them.